38 Interesting Ideas* for

Class Blog Posts

*and tips

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License.

Blogging Research Wordle by Kristina B

INVITE PARENTS TO SHARE

Have a sharing week with parents bringing their gifts to your blog, with art work, writing, poetry and encouraging stories. Students will love seeing their parents as co- contributors and part of the learning community.

#1 - Share a Photo of your Classroom

Explain about the different parts of it and how it is being used. Invite other teachers and classes to write a similar blog post explaining about their classrooms.

Encourage children from your class to leave comments about what they like about it or even suggestions for changes they would like to see.

#2 - Publish children's work

Don't just post work that is flawless but also invite comments and suggestions on work that can be improved.

#3 - Publish your shared writing

As you produce writingClas with the class in your lessons, post it to your blog.

Invite the class or blog visitors to improve something and to comment.

#4 - Share your classroom agreement

This can be done at the beginning of the year and is a good way to share your class agreement with the wider community.

#5 - Share a photo of a class display

#6 - Post a maths video from the IWB

For example the written methods for multiplication are included, the children can use it as a revision aid.

The parents get to see how the school wants it set out AND the children get to comment on their favored method.

#7 - Post images from your digital microscope

"What is under our microscope?" - or even asking for people to guess what the image is and to comment on the suggestions.

Flies eye by MuseumWales

#8 - Post homework tasks every week

eg. maths problems, children to comment as their task.

Tapping a Pencil by Rennett Stowe

#9 - Create an Art GalleryPost pictures of all of the artwork created in a session, make a gallery or slideshow.You could create a Picasa slideshow for the sidebar that can be continually updated.

#10 - Concept Cartoons Post Concept Cartoons for science prior to a lesson or a week of work. Children are asked to comment on what they think will happen and then these can be used as a start to the first lesson or as an intitial assessment.

#11 - Preview Upcoming Topics

Post an outline of an upcoming lesson topic or project together with some links for pre-task reading/viewing.

Invite students to start discussing the topic, suggest further links and air any queries they have before presenting the topic in class.

Alternatively, present a 'teaser' and encourage class and parents to guess exactly what it is. This could take the form of a brief video clip, an image or a weblink.

@DaveDodgson

#12 - Vocab Revision

To revise the vocabulary they have just learned, you can create vocab games from classtools, Spellingcity and crossword puzzles from Just Crosswords. @evab2001

#13 Tutorials

Create screencast tutorials, or still image shots for things that you want your students to know.(ie: how to log into specific sites, or how to play a math game)

If your students are older, have them create the tutorials or screenshots.

@nzchrissy

#14 Ask an interesting maths question

Give the children a chance to ask their questions. Before someone tries to answer it, value the question and stick it on the blog.

Then the whole world can have a go. When the answers come in use them as a discussion point for more maths.

#15 Create and Interpret a Word CloudHave students use Tagxedo or Wordle to create a survey question, and have the students rotate computers to answer several of their classmates' survey questions, open-ended questions, or opinion questions. The blog post can be used to upload and interpret the image. *Note - Tagxedo word clouds also come with 'Embed' code which can be copied and pasted into a blog post to show a more interactive word cloud.

@dannymaas

#16 - Post a Glog (edu.glogster.com)

http://2010sfa6.glogster.com/catwho/

#17 Embed a Voki Talking Avatar

Have students use Voki.com to create and then embed a talking avitar onto a blog post. This can be an effective way for students to narrate a piece of work, enhance language skills, and also take in information in a non-textual way.

@dannymaas

#18 Create a Top List

Crowd source the class for the top reasons for.... Or individual blogs of top list...

Reasons my homework is not done Best things about my schoolReasons the gov't did... Criteria for good video

@jenclevette

#19 Use Wallwisher to...@surreallyno

- get feedback from your students on a certain topic (e.g. What was difficult in this task?)- get students to brainstorm ideas (e.g.we brainstormed titles for a class story we had created collaboratively)- get students express an opinion, a prediction, a hypothesis etc

#20 Use online free polls to... allow students to give authentic feedback

@surreallyno

#21 Embed online games...

so students can practice interdisciplinary skills prior to an assessment(as all games have different levels of difficulty, students can practice at their own pace at home and reach different levels)

@surreallyno

#22 Use graphs http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx

to show the variety of choices in your class, task results etc. @surreallyno

#23 Embed author websites to...motivate students to read, write etc

Some of my second graders - also second language learners!- wrote to Robert Munsch after I presented them his website on the blog ( we also had read More Pies prior to this - one of his books). Surprise- he wrote them back!@surreallyno

#24 Embed VIDEOS to...

-stir curiosity about an upcoming lesson-enhance learning-engage students in discussions

@surreallyno

#25 Use photo tools to...

- show student activity - so they can REFLECT- develop discussions on the task

AMAZING RESOURCE:http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/

@surreallyno

#26 Use a blog to...allow students to CREATE content and to SHARE it with others

Below is a 2nd grader's (Romanian!) poem on maps- she loved inquiring into maps and explorers.:)

@surreallyno

#27 Use a blog to ask parents a question. Great way of strengthening home-school partnerships & creating conversations.

Below is a post from the 2KM blog asking parents to share their experiences of schoolClick here to see the post

@kathleen_morris inspired by @henriettaMi

#28 Use a blog to celebrate student achievements!

Celebrate test results, merit certificates, good manners, class awards, or anything else you want the kids to be excited about!

Example post

@lisagallin

#29 Use a blog to share poetry and songs the students are learning.

Give the students a chance to see their performance and perhaps inspire someone else to learn the poem or song too!

Example post

@lisagallin

#30 Use a blog to describe classroom procedures and why you do them.

Make a post to explain some of your everyday classroom routines and procedures and point out what the kids are learning from them.

Example post

@lisagallin

#31 Use a blog to summarise informationlearned from guest speakers. Record information learned from guest speakers so it can be reviewed by the class later.

Example post

@lisagallin

#32 Create digital stories with myebook and embed these in a blog. Also useful for showing good work. http://bit.ly/fcXn9l

http://bit.ly/cqIPnm

#33 Create a class list of library books or books which "teacher used to read" with a Shelfari blog widget http://www.shelfari.com/

#35 Post an introduction to a text or topic and ask students to create or answer a series of questions in the comments section.

"There was once a shepherd-boy who kept his flock at a little distance from the village. Once he thought he would play a trick on the villagers and have some fun at their expense. So he ran toward the village crying out, with all his might, ”Wolf! Wolf! Come and help! The wolves are at my lambs!'' The kind villagers left their work and ran to the field to help him. But when they got there the boy laughed at them for their pains; there was no wolf there."

#36 Put a "Who is visiting us?" clustr map in a widget on your blog. "Whos.amung us?" has some great statistics which can enthuse students when they see the number of people and the different countries visiting.

#37 - Question Chain

In any content area: (This works super well with a book study)Teacher posts a question. First student answers it and poses a new question.Second student answers that question and poses a third.And so forth...

Questions cannot be repeated.

@hcarver (idea compliments of Dan Frew)

#38 - Student Learning Journals

Have students summarize what they've learned that week, questions that came up, and questions moving forward.

Each student could write his/her own post or you can assign a rotation of "bloggers of the week."

@rmbyrne

If you would like to: Contribute your ideas and tips to the presentation.Let me know how you have used the resource.Get in touch. You can email me or I am @tombarrett on Twitter

Thanks for helpingTom Barrett

Image: ‘Sharing‘

If you add a tip (or even if you don't) please tweet about it and the link so more people can contribute.

I have created a page for all of the Interesting Ways presentations on my blog.

The whole family in one place :-) Have you seen Maths Maps

yet?